


The Hands of the Clock Came to a Standstill

by Shaitanah



Category: Dante's Cove
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-20
Updated: 2011-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:39:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaitanah/pseuds/Shaitanah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grace Neville contemplates the future in the aftermath of the battle against the House of Shadows. [post-series 3]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hands of the Clock Came to a Standstill

**Author's Note:**

> Dante’s Cove belongs to here! and Michael Costanza.

Grace watches the sea that shifts lazily at her feet, and thinks how swiftly nature licks its wounds. One would hardly notice a change about Dante’s Cove now, save for a few dead bodies that must have already been taken care of; yet the very soil is fat with blood, and Grace ponders how terribly easy she has given her own sister over to the House of Shadows. There was no love lost between her and Diana, but she would not wish such an end even upon the greatest of her enemies.

 

She feels the weight of her two hundred years now, just as she feels life growing inside her, and she wonders how the two correlate.

 

She does not move when Ambrosius comes to stand beside her, bare feet sinking into the damp sand. It is the longest they have been around each other without trading insults since he was courting her all these years ago. He is not the same man now. In truth, he had never been that man, but she is done acting out the wicked witch, and well, they have just saved the world together.

 

He lowers himself on the sand. She does not have to pry to know what he is feeling. He too, in spite of his smooth integration into this new world, stands apart.

 

“How is the misfit?” she asks instead, being civil, with a dash of genuine interest thrown in. she is not particularly fond of Kevin (on top of all, he acted as a fool during the battle), but he means a lot to Ambrosius. So, there is no bite in her voice.

 

“Kevin is well,” Ambrosius tells her. “He is a little shaken up though.”

 

She nods in understanding. She has come to feel a certain fondness for her feisty, promiscuous boarders, always loitering about the house half-naked and engaging in all sorts of questionable activities. And she finds that she misses the ones that are gone.

 

“I have been thinking,” she muses aloud. Ambrosius cocks his head slightly. He is looking at the ocean, but he is listening to her. “I am glad we did not get married.” She adds rapidly before he offers a sarcastic comment: “I would have killed you.”

 

“You would have tried.”

 

“I would have done it.” She recalls her vision, and her hand constricts involuntarily, digging deeper into the sand. “It was the sacrifice my mother thought Tresum required. And my child would have been stillborn.”

 

He looks at her, his face unreadable.

 

“I never liked you, Grace,” he says, brutally honest in the spirit of these fast, pitiless times. “I would have made you unhappy. You were old and uptight.”

 

A few days ago she would have first blushed fiercely and then insulted him in kind. Now, she merely chuckles and completes his list.

 

“And female.”

 

He arches his eyebrows, clearly amused and maybe even pleased by her reaction.

 

“You are none of those things now. I did tell you, didn’t I? Sex works miracles.”

 

She shrugs. She could pretend she hadn’t given it much thought, but in truth, she would not have waited over a century and a half for anything short of a miracle.

 

“I am still female,” she remarks tersely. Now more than ever.

 

“The part that most becomes you,” Ambrosius states, and thinks undoubtedly of the new and unfamiliar grounds they find themselves upon. She is the Moon to his Sun, the union of two Tresum houses as it should be; but they have not been anything other than enemies for such a long time that neither of them feels comfortable with this transition. They both have asked themselves if one shared victory truly means this much.

 

Grace brings her hand up to her belly, then lets it fall away. She had dreamt of a child for so long, but now it is almost a mirage to her. Her mother had had her so focused on the task of prolonging the Tresum line that Grace had never even stopped to dwell on the simplest things. What name should she choose? Should she announce it or wait until it was impossible to conceal? She contemplates telling Ambrosius now, if only because he is here and because he is her oldest acquaintance, but he would probably tease her for not using protection. She can almost hear him say it, which is funny: she had spent so much time hating and despising him, yet she knows him better than she sometimes knows herself.

 

He shakes his head and drawls:

 

“Grace, oh Grace. I can practically hear you thinking. You will overwork yourself. Can’t you just enjoy having what you want for once?”

 

“Not wanting you dead,” she smiles. “I’m not sure where this leaves me.”

 

He smirks, twisting his lips in that inimitable harsh line that she secretly loves.

 

“In a land of countless opportunities. Isn’t it fun to try new things, my dear?”

 

 _March 20, 2011_


End file.
